The Liver Healing Diet (eBook)

A healthy life is practically impossible without a healthy liver. Liver, being of the most engaged organs in the body carries out more than 500 crucial roles to make sure the body is working efficiently. Here are some of the roles your liver performs:

-Work as the core food processing system in your body.

- Keeps and regulates energy and essentials nutrients.

-Breaks down and expels toxic substances that come into your body through the food you consume and the air you breathe.

-Secretes vital proteins that your body uses to functions.

Fundamentally, the liver can be described as a processing plant, storage facility, filtering factory and manufacturing plant, all interwoven as a single entity. Everybody only has each. If the liver is sick and cannot discharge its critical functions, the rest of the body cannot work appropriately. Therefore, as you take care of your car to keep going about without hitch over time, in the same vein, you need to maintain your liver too, so that it can continue performing its vital roles excellently. Now let’s have a closer glance at the liver and its roles.

The Structure of the Liver

The liver is majorly located in the upper right area of the abdomen, directly under the diaphragm. It is above the gallbladder, intestines, and pancreas, and above and to the right of the stomach. It is connected to the gallbladder and the small intestine by ducts that carry bile. The two major lobes of the liver are composed of thousands of lobules, which are made up of liver cells, blood vessels, and bile ducts. Some of the blood vessels take blood away from the heart and supply oxygen to the liver cells and bile ducts. Other vessels carry blood from the intestines to supply nutrients and toxins to the liver for biochemical processing. The liver processes and keeps the nutrients, and filters the poisons. Other blood vessels transport detoxified blood away from the liver to the rest of the body. The liver produces bile, which is carried from the bile ducts to the gallbladder and intestines.

The Timeless Liver

Are you aware that the liver is the only organ in your body that has the ability to regenerate itself? The prehistoric Greeks understand this wonder. As found in their mythology, Prometheus annoyed the supreme god, Zeus, by pilfering fire from the gods and pass it to mankind. Upon discovery, Prometheus was severely punished; he was chained to a mountain where an eagle feeds on his liver daily through perpetuity. Surprisingly, the liver would regenerate at night, only to be consumed again the following day.

Apart from the damage caused by a legendary eagle, several other things including, disease, toxins, and viruses can destroy the liver.

The liver is in the habit of regenerating and healing itself after injury. A perfect instance of liver’s unbelievable capacity to regenerate is when an individual with a healthy liver donates about half of it to somebody with a diseased liver. The liver of a healthy donor regenerates to nearly its original size in just 8 weeks. On the other hand, a destructive force or activity that overpowers the ability of the liver to regenerate or heal can cause serious permanent damage.

Functions of a Liver

While the liver performs hundreds of functions, the 4 major ones are:

1.  Digestion and absorption of essential nutrients

2. Storage and regulation of energy and nutrients

3. Secretion of vital proteins

4. Detoxification

Digestion and Absorption of Essential Nutrients

It is the primary responsibility of the liver to break down food into key particles such as iron, fat, glucose (sugar) and then helps the body to assimilate them. The liver carried out this process by synthesizing bile, a substance produces from water; bilirubin, a by-product of red blood cells; and cholesterol and fat. The bile is secreted in the liver and then drained into small bile ducts that drain into larger bile ducts.  The bile eventually flows into the hepatic duct, which later carries the bile into the gallbladder and small intestine.  The bile mixes with food in the small intestine to break down fat during digestion. This is crucial in the assimilation of fat-soluble nutrients such as vitamins A, D, E, and K, which are present in fat globules. Bile acids emulsify the fat globules into minute droplets so that the vitamins can be absorbed and used by the body.

Storage and Regulation of Energy and Nutrients

A liver can simply be depicted as a warehouse where energy is stored and distributed as the body demands it. The liver stores and regulates in the form of sugar (glucose) and fructose- the most well-known forms of sugar eaten in today’s diet.  The sugars are stored in the form of glycogen, also known as animal starch, a ready source of energy when the body calls for it. The liver can keep about 250 to 500 calories of glycogen. It stores amino acids (the monomial unit of proteins), iron, vitamins A, D, K, B12 and fat. If the liver falls short of the ability to store these forms of nutrients and energy, the liver becomes damaged. Nearly every cell in the body can process glucose as a source of energy. The liver cells are the only ones that can process fructose. Thus, surplus fructose that overwhelms the capacity of the liver to process fructose can cause fat and inflammation in the liver.

The usual refined table sugar –sucrose- which most individuals add to food and utilized in baking, comprised of glucose and fructose in equal proportion.  High fructose corn syrup contained 45% glucose and 55% fructose.  After you eat, excess glucose that your does not instantly utilize as fuel (energy –regular bodily activities) is metabolized and stored as glycogen in the liver. If you walk around after eating, you will certainly burn some of the glucose you have just eaten so there’s less to convert into glycogen for storage.

The liver also takes fructose and without much ado converts it to fat to keep energy.  In this way too much fructose leads to deposition of fat in the liver, resulting in non-alcoholic fatty disease (NAFLD). When our bodies need energy, the liver usually converts the glycogen back into glucose for energy. In a situation where you use up glycogen stored and still require more energy; if you have been running a race or fasting, then your liver will resort to using stored fat and proteins for more energy (fuel). The stored fat is broken down to liberate utilizable energy for the body. Then the liver similarly turns amino acids, the proteins’ building blocks, into glucose. However, if you bring in excessive energy that is converted and stored than utilized, the glycogen storage “depot” become overfilled and stops functioning proficiently.

The liver equally processes, stores, and liberates iron. As your old red blood cells die, hemoglobin, a protein containing iron, is metabolize and the iron is then stored in the liver. Iron plays a very important role in the body. It aids red blood cells transport oxygen to where it is required in the body.  When the body synthesizes new red blood cells, the liver releases into the bone marrow where it is utilized to produce hemoglobin for new red blood cells. In ailments in which there is excess iron in the body, the excess iron is deposited in the liver, thereby causing liver damage.

Production of Important Proteins

The work of a liver is never finished. Besides being a processing plant, depot, and stronghold, it is a relentlessly functioning factory, churning out essential proteins and cholesterol to keep the running performing optimally. It plays a fundamental role in manufacturing proteins such as key plasma proteins, carrier proteins, hormones, prohormones and apolipoprotein, factors in homeostasis and fibrinolysis.

The liver produces proteins in the blood that transport other essential nutrients and hormones to their various destinations in the body. For instance, it produces albumin, which helps transport thyroid hormone and a host of other hormones, drugs, calcium and other substances around the body to where they are required.

The several types of proteins which the liver secretes;

Carrier Proteins

Hemopexin- carries free heme liberated from hemoglobin

IGF- binds protein, carries insulin-like growth factor 1

Major urinary proteins- carry pheromones in rodents

Transthyretin- carries the thyroid hormone thyroxin (T4)

Vitamin D-binding protein carries vitamin D

Ceruloplasmin - transports copper

Transferrin- transports iron.

Transcortin- carries cortisol, aldosterone, and progesterone

Retinol- binds protein, carries retinol

Sex hormone-binds globulin, carries sex hormones, purposely testosterone and estradiol

Thyroxine-binds globulin carries the thyroid hormones thyroxine (T4) and 3,5,3’-triiodothyronine (T3)

Haptoglobin-carries free hemoglobin discharged from erythrocytes

Hormones

Hepcidin- a peptide hormone that regulates iron homeostasis

Insulin-like growth factor 1- a polypeptide protein hormone which plays an important role in childhood growth and continues to have anabolic effects in adults

Thrombopoietin- a glycoprotein hormone that regulates the production of platelets by the bone marrow.

Prohormones

Angiotensinogen-when altered to angiotensin causes vasoconstriction and release of aldosterone, in effect increasing blood pressure

Apolipoproteins - nearly all apolipoprotein, except apo B48 which is produced by the intestine

Detoxification

Despite individuals'...